


Finding Robin

by Elf (Elfwreck)



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gotham City - Freeform, Street Fight, vigilantes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 06:59:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4338470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfwreck/pseuds/Elf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Damian's death, Dick takes up the cape and cowl. It's not going well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Robin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Teland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teland/gifts).



> Happy birthday Te! This is a bunny I've had in my head for a long time. Is not finished! (Um. It may never be finished.) It has not nearly enough porn and is about 1% the length of story it should be--that you deserve, for all the wonderful stories of yours I've enjoyed--but it's still your birthday where I am, so I'm posting it today. Hope you enjoy it!

So this is it, Dick thinks, the end of Batman. It doesn't matter if Bruce takes up the cowl again if a gang has pictures of him dying, has an actual body to show off. He should be able to take them out--okay, there are about fourteen of them and one of him, but he's worked against much higher odds.

Just not when he's been this tired. And alone. 

He hasn't run himself this ragged since Bruce was recovering from Bane, and he was trying to be Batman in Gotham and Nightwing in New York and Dick Grayson in school… and he had Tim to help with that.

Tim's grown up and gone. Bruce is on some other continent, putting a thorough end to Ra's Al-Ghul's works. Damian is…

Damian is _dead_ , and he hopes they don't hear the sob in his voice as he swings the cape around, looking for an opening. He's only got a couple of batarangs left, and four of them have guns. They're closing. Dick's not sure how he got himself to the center of this empty parking lot, but there is nothing nearby close enough to swing a jump-line, which means it's just him against them.

He tries to remember his time in Blackgate during No Man's Land and how he took down a lot more people, a lot more *trained* people, with fewer resources. It's not working. He hadn't gone into Blackgate after two weeks of a scant handful of hours of sleep a night, nor after an encounter with Killer Croc. Croc was down--tied to a telephone pole and police on their way--but Dick's right leg wouldn't hold weight at all anymore, and his left shoulder refused to pivot as far back as it should.

He's so tired, he keeps grabbing for his escrima sticks. For years, the only times he was this tired and running on adrenaline, he was wearing blue fingerstripes. He hopes they don't notice; he knows he isn't sticking to Batman's moves, but Nightwing in body armor probably isn't recognizable to them.

Fourteen men. Moving closer. In a circle. Four guns that he can see, and he has the batarangs out, and they aren't grabbing the guns yet--nobody wants to be first--but they'll figure it out soon enough. Dick knows--knows, with a sick frustration--that he can't make it out of this one. 

No Babs on the comm anymore. No Titans to show up at the last minute; Bruce had done an excellent job of convincing them to stay out of Gotham, no matter what. No blue-and-red blur was going to happen by; Superman is investigating something off-planet. 

He'd thought he could do this alone. Bruce did, that first year. (Bruce wore one costume, the little voice in his head reminded him. Lived at one address. And didn't try to appear coherent during the day; he convinced everyone that Brucie Wayne spent his nights partying and his days sleeping.) He'd done this before--Nightwing in one city, Batman in another--and it'd been hard, but he'd never slipped like this.

He isn't 25 anymore. He has more scars now. A few spots hurt when the weather changed. And of course, he'd had Robin then. All the Robins were gone now.

He snarls at the approaching circle of men, notes the glee in their eyes as they realize he has no escape route. He crouches and narrows his eyes. Maybe if he takes down two, three, five of them, the rest will be shocked enough not to press their advantage. It'd happened before.

Doesn't look like it's happening this time, but he has nothing else to try.

He looks for weak points in their circle--there aren't any--and prepares himself to lunge at one of the guns. He'd only get one move; his leg isn't going to let him back up once he's down.

Flash of red, behind them.

One of the men crumples. 

Red. Another, three men away from the first, screams and collapses.

They start to turn and then he can see through the gaps between them--ROBIN!--No, a stranger, a kid in a red ski jacket, crouched low, moving fast, much too fast for walking, too smooth for running, shifting shoulders--

A third man down. Crowbar. The kid hit the man in the knee with a crowbar. And was moving behind the rest, who'd started to move to face the new threat, who was moving away *very* quickly.

Dick stands. This, _this_ he'd done before, countless times, from both sides. He moves to remind them who the real threat is. Someone has taken down three of them for him; that should even things up enough. 

Batarang to two of the gun hands. Flare of the cape to knock down the guy drawing the third; leap on the fourth, already on the ground. Force the gun out of his hand and throw it far away, and then…

Dick is on the ground, one good leg, against nine men standing. Time to remember his capoeira, and to Hell with what moves Batman was supposed to use on the street.

He takes three more down, just that quick, but he falls as he takes the last one--wrong leg, lands hard, shoulder won't let him roll back up. He's on the ground and they're moving in fast.

One yells "OW!" and another falls on Dick--the red vest was back, moving quick, had hit one on the head with the crowbar and apparently pushed another over. That's something Dick can use--he grabs the guy and throws him into two of his friends; all three fall down and scrabble away to stand up, buying Dick precious seconds. 

Three left. Dick manages to pull himself into something like a runner's crouch, hiding the leg that won't hold weight, and grins at them.

They run. Apparently, three-to-one against the Batman, even on his knees, is odds they don't want to take. 

Dick looks around for his benefactor. There--far end of the parking lot. Too far to run in so little time, even for someone fast. Did Gotham have speedster meta that Dick didn't know about? Then he sees how smoothly the kid is moving.

SKATES. The kid is on roller skates; that's how he's moving so fast. As Dick watches, the crowbar reaches out and snags a light pole, pulling the kid into a tight circle around it before zipping out of the parking lot.

Dick catches the flash of a grin before the kid streaks out of sight.

Suddenly, Dick knows _exactly_ how Bruce had felt when he first saw Jason, because the only thought in his head is _that's my Robin_.

***

How hard could it be, Dick thought, to find a teenager in Gotham who hung out near crime alley in a red ski vest, roller skates and a crowbar?

Turns out it'd be easier if he knew the kid's age. Or hair color--it'd looked dark, but maybe that was a hat. Or race. Or gender. What he had, instead, was a description of how the kid moved… he could describe the kid well enough that Bruce or Tim could spot him (probably him?) in a crowd… about 5'2", slender (legs, at least), economical movement--direct, firm, no flourishes (but maybe that was because of the skates)--prone to dropping center of gravity to keep balance, full torso movement from a crouch, used the crowbar like an extra arm. 

What he got from his informants was questions. How old? boy or girl? what's the name? look, how about real simple--black or white?

"Whi..." Dick had started to say, but then realized _he didn't know_. The parking lot had been dark, just a couple of distant streetlights. He never got a good look at the kid's face; he only saw a flash of teeth in the distance as the boy was leaving. (Probably a boy. A girl wouldn't take on 14 armed men with a crowbar, right? Well, okay, some of the girls he knew would. But Dick needed a pronoun, at least in his head, and he was opting for male until he knew otherwise.)

***

Letricia Mitchell--Treesh to her friends; Letty to her great-aunt Mabel--zipped out of the empty parking lot of the long-abandoned Blockbuster, and grinned all the way home.

 _I saved *Batman,*_ she thought. And then: Damnfool should know better than to get his self surrounded like that. And then: I saved Batman. And then: Wow, I hope he doesn't come looking for me. Gramma'd have a fit, big white guy in a heavy cape in her tiny living room. He couldn't turn around without knocking something over.

 _...I saved Batman._ That had to be worth a D in History and a week's detention for mouthing off to that racist fuck who taught Theater, even if nobody else knew about it. She let herself coast on that feeling while she packed her skates away under the bed, hid the crowbar and her gloves under her mattress, and went to sleep thinking of how that cape had twirled, rippling like a dancer's skirt and heavy like a brick to the face. Maybe someday she could have a cape like that.

 _Nah_ , she thought sleepily, _I'd never have the money. And 'sides, it'd make me too easy to spot._ Sure was pretty to watch, though. Maybe she'd go looking for Batman again, now that she knew where he hung out sometimes.


End file.
